As we noted last week, the Institute of Medicine released a report in which it recommended that the health reform guidelines for preventive care that are being developed by the Department of Health and Human Services should include no-copay for contraception. Since then the anti-choice, anti-contraception, anti-women conservatives have come out with a slew of ridiculous arguments as to why this is a bad idea. Robin Marty pointed to the Des Moines Registers’ argument that without a co-pay, people have “no skin in the game” and may use more health care (in this case birth control) than they really need (I’ll take two diaphragms please?). And, in her piece this morning Amanda Marcotte looks at arguments that say we will create a society based on “consequence-free sex” and are dangerously “decoupling sex from procreation,” and suggests that many of these arguments boil down to “Dirty sluts don’t deserve nothing.”

One of those singing that tune is Bill O’Reilly, who briefly discussed the report in his Culture Warriors segment last week. He seemed outraged that the government would be forced to pay $4 billion just for the pill and argued: “Many women who get pregnant are blasted out of their minds when they have sex. They’re not going to use birth control anyway.”

Pastor Kevin Backus at the Buffalo, New York National Organization For Marriage (NOM) anti-​gay hate rally, claims establishing same-​sex marriage is just like the Soviet Union’s efforts to abolish marriage. Because encouraging more families, and giving them legal protections, is the same as getting rid of all marriages and families, right? This is all about the conservative mindset, the belief in the “zero-​sum” game. If you win, I must lose. If you have something, I cannot have it too. If we have the same thing, mine is worth less. Imagine what they do when their neighbors buy the same car?

On Monday night, Barack Obama painted the debt ceiling fight as a product of Republican extremism. He said that everyone in Washington agrees we need to enact deep and painful cuts, and that “the debate has centered around two different approaches. The first approach says, let’s live within our means by making serious, historic cuts in government spending. Let’s cut domestic spending to the lowest level it’s been since Dwight Eisenhower was president.”

That, according to the president, is the “balanced,” Democratic approach – asking “everyone to give a little without requiring anyone to sacrifice too much.” But, “Unfortunately, for the past several weeks, Republican House members have essentially said that the only way they’ll vote to prevent America’s first-ever default is if the rest of us agree to their deep, spending cuts-only approach.”

All of that, for better or worse, is accurate. But the surreal dance over raising the debt ceiling is not only a result of Republican intransigence. It is also the result of a bipartisan embrace of a fundamentally flawed reading of the current political climate — an abiding belief that, rather than being confused about how we came to run today’s high deficits, there exists a “silent majority” of Americans who hate government, who want nothing more than an opportunity to support politicians who favor deep cuts to the public sector, and who are appalled at the lack of “bipartisan cooperation” standing in the way. Unfortunately, Republicans stand to gain the most from that misunderstanding.

Obama gave the speech after the GOP’s refusal to release the economy they hold hostage even after the Democrats capitulated entirely to all their demands for cuts. Over the weekend, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid offered a package that would decrease spending by $2.7 trillion over the next decade, without any revenues increases, in exchange for raising the debt ceiling and avoiding default through the 2012 elections.

As the president noted, it’s everything the GOP has asked for during the standoff. But they keep moving the goalposts. GOP leaders had previously opposed a short-term hike, arguing that it would cause “uncertainty” in the markets. So Speaker of the House John Boehner, R-Ohio, is rolling out a counter-proposal that would raise the debt ceiling by around 1 trillion – enough to keep the government funded through the beginning of next year – in exchange for a trillion in cuts, and then a 12-member, bipartisan “super-Congress” would come up with another round of deep cuts, and their recommendations would get an automatic up-or-down vote on the eve of an election year.

With offers on the table that fall well to the right of what even Republican voters want, why does the GOP refuse to accept victory? On its face, there are two reasons. First, Boehner doesn’t have the votes within his own party – a group of House Republicans who are pushing the ludicrous “cut, cap and balance” bill have already rejected his counter-offer – and bringing any bill to the floor that might attract enough Democratic votes to push it over the top would surely cost him his speaker’s gavel. Second, while Reid’s proposal gives them everything they wanted in terms of cuts without revenues, it leaves Medicare intact. Republicans very much want concessions on Medicare in order to blunt Democratic attacks on incumbents for supporting Rep Paul Ryan’s, R-Wisconsin, plan to privatize Medicare.

Recently my mother told me something shocking. When she decided that her family was complete and sought a tubal ligation from her doctor (aka “to have her tubes tied”), she was told that her husband would have to sign a form giving his consent. This was not during the dark ages, but the dawn of the 1980s. And this was not some third world country practicing sharia law, but Texas. (Yes, I can already hear some of the 3rd world jokes many of you are making about my home state right about now. To which I say, “Hook ’em Horns.”)

Her story was a stark reminder that it really wasn’t that long ago that our country was stuck in the dark ages when it comes to women having the right to control our own bodies. It was also a powerful reminder that while abortion remains the most divisive reproductive rights issue — and the one likely to garner the most headlines — it is not necessarily the most important. There are countless reproductive rights issues that affect all women — including those who may not consider themselves pro-choice. These are the issues I consider most at stake with the ongoing assault on Planned Parenthood. And it is through these issues that President Obama may end up leaving his greatest legacy.

Last week a nonpartisan panel convened by the Institute of Medicine recommended that insurance companies be required to cover birth control for free as a form of preventive care under the new health care law. If the government follows the panel’s recommendations, this could end up being not just one of the most important moments in the reproductive rights movement since Roe v. Wade, but the most important moment ever. (Click here to see some of the most important reproductive rights cases besides Roe v. Wade.)

A poll released during the 50th anniversary of the birth control pill found that cost remains a key barrier for couples when it comes to using contraception. As I have noted in a previous column, “though it seems like it would be a no brainer for insurers to cover birth control rather than face the prospect of eventually covering another dependent, a 2007 Mercer study found that while about 70 percent of insurers provide coverage for erectile dysfunction medications, (as in Viagra) HALF of all health insurance plans do not provide contraceptive coverage.”

Public health officials and women’s rights groups are cheering the recent recommendationof the Institute of Medicine that “health insurers should pay for a range of services for women at no cost, including birth control, counseling on sexually transmitted diseases, and AIDS screening.”

But unsurprisingly, many on the right immediately lashed out at the decision, denouncing it as “feminist pork” or tantamount to government-sponsored abortion. Some particularly vile reactions came from Fox News, where host Greg Gutfeld said eliminating birth control co-pays was part of a much more sinister leftist plot:

GUTFELD: If you’re talking about free birth control, who’s going to use free birth control? The people who can’t afford it. So the left has figured out a way to eradicate the poor, and it’s by eradicating the poor!